The Westport Art Collection

National Art Education Association

The Westport Art CollectionAuthor(s): Burt ChernowSource: Art Education, Vol. 19, No. 9 (Dec., 1966), pp. 30-35Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190845 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 11:40

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.82 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 11:40:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=naea

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3190845?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE WESTPORT ART

COLLECTION

L



BURT CHERNOW

AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE visual arts historically and in today's setting is essential to a sound art education. Reproductions of art work in books and slides, as we all know, have improved dramatically in recent years. Another tool, pregnant with educational potential for the visual arts and thus far relatively unused in public school education, is outstanding examples of original art as an everyday part of school life.

Imagine if suddenly' America's schools were as barren of books as they now are of original examples of the visual arts! Certainly parents would protest endlessly until funds were found and made available to supply the necessary texts. A town might not be able to purchase all the library books it needed at once, but certainly some start could be made. A wide public understanding is needed that excellent painting, sculpture, and graphics, like excellent books, are both necessary and available.

Today's public school art teacher has defined a Hercu- lean job for himself within what is usually a minimal time allotment provided the arts in public schools. In spite of nearly impossible tasks in providing an art education to children and adults alike, the art teacher has shown an increasing understanding that it is also part of his job to provide more than just prints, slides, book illustrations, filmstrips, and movies to familiarize students with great works of art. He is now beginning to display an awareness that it is largely his responsibility to make every effort to bring to the school, where possible, original examples of the visual arts to sustain and heighten the art program.

Loan exhibits of original work have served a vital role in supporting the art program and hopefully will con- tinue to do so. Loans, however, only briefly become part of school life and usually quickly dissipate, leaving the usual barren school environment after exhausting arrange- ments often involving considerable expenditures of time

and money. Occasional loan exhibits and museum and gallery visits are not enough. Viewing high quality original works unhurriedly in the everyday setting of school life, seeing the actual size, true color, and texture of the work afford children the best possible opportunity to heighten their awareness and empathy for the visual arts. Through the desire to bring such works into the schools, Westport, Connecticut has initiated a project known as the Westport Art Collection.

In many respects, Westport is one of New York's most attractive suburbs, with the majority of its male working force commuting daily into New York City. A large per- centage of this work force is actively engaged in pursuits related to the arts, such as fine and commercial art, advertising and communications, etc. In the last decade the town's population has increased about eighty percent and is now about 26,000. In spite of its relatively small size, its lack of industry as a source of tax revenue, and its rapid growth, the community has maintained one of the finest educational systems in both the state and the country. The natural beauty of the area and the dynamic quality of many of its individual residents have attracted a proportionately large number of artists, writers, and musicians. Westport and its immediate environs in recent years have been the home of such authors as J. D. Sal- inger, John Hersey, Howard Fast, Robert Penn Warren, Peter DeVries, Phyllis McGinley; internationally known designer Paul Rand; artists such as Louise Nevelson, Gabor Peterdi, Antonio Fransconi; musicians Dave Bru- beck and Leonard Bernstein; and some of the nation's foremost photographers. Some of the country's leading cartoonists and illustrators as well as Westport's Famous Artists, Famous Writers, and Famous Photographers Schools add to the total composition and contrasts which create this unique community about fifty miles from Manhattan.

Left: "Homage a Ben Nicholson," by Dr. Howard Conant, chairman of the Art Department of New York University.

The works in this section were donated to the Westport Art Collection by citizens of the area as part of a unique

experiment to bring original examples of the visual arts into the classroom.

31



E=I I'

Above, left: "Ondho," by the French optical artist, Victor '

Vasarely. Center: "Self Portrait" and "Elizabeth Taylor," by ' ,

Andy Warhol. Right: drawing by Ben Shahn. Facing page, above: "Wake of Two Ships," photograph by Joseph Costa. -

32

L



Last year, coinciding with the opening of public schools in Westport, there also opened for the first time the sizeable art collection, contributed by community artists and collectors as permanent educational property of the schools. The art department, which had been involved with the idea for some time, gathered for the town's schools well over 100 high quality examples in all the visual arts, done in most cases by nationally known area artists with impressive museum and exhibition credits. There are works by Ben Shahn, Jack Levine, John Stewart Curry, Moholy-Nagy, Victor Vasarely, Roy Lich- tenstein, Andy Warhol, and James Rosenquist. Photog- raphy, which is one of the visual arts represented in the collection, includes original examples of photographs by internationally known photographers Phillipe Halsman, Alfred Eisenstaedt, George Silk, Joe Costa, Victor Keppler, and Bert Stern.

The initial art collection with an estimated value in excess of $30,000 is comprised of paintings, drawings, graphics, collage, posters, stained glass, photography, and sculpture, selected primarily for their excellence. One large community business paid approximately $1,000 to frame much of the initial work donated to the collection. During its first year of use in the Westport public schools, the collection grew substantially with a gift of fifty paintings from the Ford Motor Company as well as many individual contributions from both artists and collectors. In the immediate area of Fairfield County, Connecticut, extensive newspaper, radio, and editorial comment helped build community support and understanding. Westport was fortunate to have rich community visual arts resources upon which to draw and is one of very few communities which could develop through contributions alone an impressive start toward an education- ally significant collection.

Major works are not easily unlodged from either artists or collectors, no matter how worthy the cause, and funds must be found to selectively purchase major works in all media. Some money raised for public schools through taxes should rightfully be used for the discriminating long-range purchasing of visual arts. Financial resources outside the tax dollar such as business, corpo- ration, and foundation grants can and should supplement this purchasing power,

Rather than setting up a museum type gallery to which the children would have to be brought, Westport's phi- losophy was to bring the art work to the children and make it an integral part of their school life. A schedule for periodic rotation among the schools is being used to insure maximum use and flexibility for the work. Having the work incorporated into the schools' daily environment gives the children an opportunity for direct, fre- quent, and sustained contact. Another advantage to having the work in the school buildings is its immediate availability for classroom instruction.

Westport, with its unique resources, has developed a strong start toward the fundamental educational objec- tive of putting the visual arts to work for the education of children. It is one particular approach in a spectrum of art education possibilities. Other solutions must be devised and used to determine through experience what general guidelines and simple logistics are most effective for American education.

If school systems devoted just one-eighth of one per-

33



cent of an annual total school budget to the acquisition of works of art, schools could make steady progress toward realization of an integration of first-rate visual arts with everyday school life. While a total collection may not be an immediate possibility, first steps should be taken. Original examples of graphic art by internationally known artists are readily available and relatively inexpensive. The time for at least token integration of the visual arts with public school life is here, if and when we recognize the opportunity. New schools should reflect planning in which there is incorporated in the design and function of the architecture facilities for the educational use of the visual arts. The school's architecture itself should offer a more rewarding aesthetic experience than is currently being afforded most children.

Administering selective purchasing of high quality visual arts is a matter of primary concern and great danger. Any program which would be exclusively selective of one school or thinking or approach would be self-destruc- tive and reflect aesthetic tyranny when practiced on a national scale. The works purchased, ideally, should be of the highest quality in as many diverse currents of con- temporary and historical visual arts as possible. Decisions on the work to be purchased must, in the final analysis, be made by individuals, and individuals are subject to error. Whether the selection is for a private collection or a public or private museum, decisions remain a matter of individual judgments. This is and will always be an attendant problem and opportunity in the visual arts. We cannot wait for a scientific system to take the individual judgment problem away or somehow devise a majority vote to democratically select works. The training and quality of public school art teachers and directors and supervisors of art, hopefully working with university art educators and outstanding artists, becomes a matter of critical importance in planning selection and long-range goals. Granting the problems in discriminating selection, they seem less enormous than those present in main- taining our present inertia and vacuum in the visual arts for the public schools. The nasty questions of "What is art?" and "Who determines quality in art?" should not stop us from seeing that art is not what presently can be seen in America's schools, and anyone can honestly judge that.

The public and our public schools will eventually recognize that monies spent on art will produce educational resources with a lasting usefulness and value, unlike the short educational and physical life of school equipment and material purchased as a common practice today. Furthermore, educators must ultimately realize that providing children with the best possible visual arts environment is a profound educational responsibility.

Many Americans feel that the arts are the soul of our democratic way of life as well as our hope for the future and what Malraux calls "a dream worthy of man." Let us use the talents we have for the visual and total education of America, support our artistic community, and try to bring about a natural and mutually beneficial relation- ship between the visual arts and education. The risks are dwarfed by the possibilities, and it is an undertaking worthy of our most serious and wholehearted considera- tion and action.

Burt Chernow, chairman of the Westport Art Collection, is with Greens Farms School, Westport, Connecticut.

34

iI AI



Left: "Fall," by Gabor Peterdi. Above: "Aerial View of New York," photograph by Joseph Costa. Center: detail of print

by Roy Lichtenstein. Right: "President Kennedy," pencil drawing by Bernard Fuchs.

35



Documents

The Westport Art Collection